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Trico emerger
Learning the Trico (tricorythodes) hatch is an important step in the development of a fly fisher. For those willing to suffer through, what can be, a humiliating learning curve, the rewards are monumental. Just think of it: an occurrence that brings trout to the surface every day, with predictable regularity. Here in the valley this 'hatch' can span a 5-month period from Memorial Day to Halloween.
The bugs begin to emerge soon after sun-up followed by a spinner-fall that will bring large fish to the surface. On waters where this hatch is fished regularly, many trout, especially larger fish, seem not to show much interest in the dun.
I have observed some fish, including large Browns, feeding on drifting nymphs, and at times, coming up, near the surface, to intercept them. These fish completely ignore a dun floating by, on the surface. For some years now I have drifted nymphs to these fish to take them.
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But, like most people, I like to take fish on top. And so I began tying floating nymphs, a ball of foam or white poly yarn tied in to suspend them in the crust. It worked! Those nymph-feeding trout, even the larger ones, would come to the surface for the floating nymph. But following a floating nymph, at 30', was becoming increasingly difficult for my old eyes.
After some experimenting I came up with a dry fly tied without hackle that sinks in the film. The wing of white polypropylene, greased, stays above the surface, like a miniature flag. This is a fly that I can see and that trout, even those feeding sub-surface, will take.
Originally I tied this pattern with an olive abdomen to closely imitate the natural. The flies emerging in the morning are females and their abdomen is colored by the mass of eggs that it contains. I don't know why, maybe boredom after tying hundreds, but a few years ago I tried substituting bright chartreuse for the olive colored abdomen. It made a difference! I have experimented enough to be convinced that the chartreuse abdomen makes for a much more effective fly.
I racked my brain trying to figure out why this fly was more effective than the natural color. I know that trout see a broader spectrum of colors than we do…. Is the color we call chartreuse actually closer to the real color than olive is? Is that the way the fish see it?
It was Mike O'Brien, publisher of the Mid-Atlantic Fly-Fishing Guide and one of the best fishermen that I know, who had the answer. I was telling him about this pattern and asked his opinion on the trout's preference. He put it in perspective by saying, simply, "fish like chartreuse."
Sometimes we can get so absorbed in trying to "match the hatch", we forget that trout don't think, they react
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Trico Emerger size #22
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